The Williams Syndrome

The firing of Juan Williams by NPR (hereinafter Democrat State Radio) yesterday for his comments on Fox News was the biggest story of the day. His alleged transgression of the purported rule against the expression of opinion by Democrat State Radio news analysts was ludicrous. We await the citation of a generally applicable rule that he violated.
The gravamen of Williams’s offense in the eyes of Democrat State Radio appears to be his regular appearance on FOX News. The powers that be at Democrat State Radio appreciate Fox approximately as much as their heroes in the Obama administration do.
The story of Williams’s firing by Democrat State Radio was a story that inspired widespread outrage around the country. The outrage went hand in hand with calls to discontinue taxpayer support for Democrat State Radio. House Minority Leader John Boehner acutely noted that it’s “reasonable to ask why Congress is spending taxpayers’ money to support a left-wing radio network.” This represents the revival of a cause that is no less worthy for being old and unsuccessful. Let’s stick with it this time.
Vivian Schiller is the president and chief executive officer of Democrat State Radio. As outrage spread around the country over her firing of Williams, she clarified the nature of his offense. She explained to an audience yesterday at the Atlanta Press Club that Williams should have kept his feelings about Muslims between himself and “his psychiatrist or his publicist” (video below).

Thus we see that Williams’s offense was a kind of right deviationism from the party line at Democrat State Radio. In the old Soviet Union, it could get you committed to a psychiatric hospital, as was Vladimir Bukovsky. At Democrat State Radio it can get you fired.
Schiller omitted only the traditional Soviet diagnosis of sluggishly progressing schizophrenia. According to the Moscow Serbsky Institute professors quoted in Bukovsky’s archives, we learn that “most frequently, ideas about a struggle for truth and justice are formed by personalities with a paranoid structure.” This is clearly part of the syndrome afflicting Williams in the eyes of Democrat State Radio.
Schiller later professed to regret her remark about Williams and his psychiatrist. “I spoke hastily and I apologize to Juan and others for my thoughtless remark,” she said. We nevertheless owe her a debt of gratitude for clarifying the nature of the forces at play at Democrat State Radio.